kimik

It depends on the show. You tend to move bigger books and keys on Sunday to other dealers and collectors that have price checked for two days. The past few years I have not noticed much of a dip. However, the Thursday night at the Calgary Expo tends to be slower than the other three days.

I am surprised that Vancouver is so small. That means the Calgary Holiday Market is likely a bigger show..........

I am speaking from my experience selling at local shows over the past 20 years. It was 2011 when things really turned for the better. Granted, Alberta has a younger population with higher disposable income levels than other parts of Canada, which definitely helps, but the formula is simple - grade accurately and price at FMV and you will do fine. Too many sellers can't grade and/or try to gouge at shows. I am fine with that as it drives more people to just buy from us.

Not necessarily. You would be surprised at how much revenue hot moderns, Campbell exclusives, and $2 boxes for blowing out collection drek can generate over a 3 or 3.5 day show. The sweet spot for back issues are decent looking keys/early SA books in the $100 - $300 range. You can sell a ton of those all weekend long, and all it takes is 10 or fewer books to hit $1K. Big books sell better online than they do at local shows.

Decent enough to cover costs to attend the show, but not a great one.

Here are some recent submisssions to CGC. I had most of the books as 8.0 going in and was curious to see how they graded out to assess how many of the other non-HG copies I have that I should send in. The ASM #238 was a nice surprise - I bought it as a 6.0 due to a long faint crease across the bottom left corner of the back cover. Normally I would pass, but the price was nice and low on it.

It must depend on where you are located. I have come across a number of DC collections, LCSs, and sellers at shows with HG copies of Batman #423 CDN the past 5 years. It was much nicer a couple of years ago when you were paying $20 max for them in 9.4 or better......... ST 37 is out there, but that is a book that does not tend to surface often since it has been considered a key for a long time. FWIW, I have found ST 21 in 9.4 or better as a tougher book to find. The black cover is a killer. Same goes for Flash #323 - I kind of miss my old CGC 9.8 CDN of that. Some of the hardest books to find in HG are the low demand/oddball Marvel and DC titles, but there is not much demand for most of them either.

You have to pay to play, unfortunately. It costs the same for Calgary and Edmonton now, but those are 10x10 booths still, not 8x8. It is not that bad if you look at it from a $333/day per booth cost. As long as there are enough comic collectors to support decent sales (i.e. at least $5K/day) then it would be worth it.

Canadian collector/dealer types like me and a few others I know definitely do. If I get a chance to make an offer on a collection, I almost always land it even if there are other collector/dealer types and US dealers offering on it. The only time it did not work out was on a collection in Calgary a few years back. My offer was 50% more than what Harley Yee and Comicage George were willing to pay, but they went with cash the night before I was going to pick it up and the owner must have needed the funds and took it. I had a bank draft with me - so I did not get the books and was out the cost of the bank draft to boot.

Would FEV be worth setting up at as a vendor so collectors have some new stuff to go through?

Are they sure they want FEV as well? Sounds like it is not on the same level as the Calgary or Edmonton Expos.......

It has been released already?

There are several of us Canadian boardies that would be happy to look at the collection and give you an offer. My suggestion is go that route and get multiple offers first before looking at consigning them elsewhere. You will likely get a price that you are happy with and will avoid the hassle of packing and shipping the books to the USA. Besides, based on what I have seen personally over the past decade or so, Canadian collectors/dealers will pay more than US dealers do.........

I would rather see Venom 2 focused on Carnage vs. Venom, with Carnage starting to beat up on Venom and then Spidey swinging in at the end asking Venom if he needs a hand and then cutting out and saving the Spidey/Venom vs Carnage story for Venom 3.

Bats #357 is a good choice as well, but in terms of staying power and overall character popularity, I would argue that this Bat-related character from the 80s is second to only Harley in popularity/relevance for DC:

He just took a bullet in Batman #55........... You could argue that he is #2 on the list behind Harley..........

There is a new DC event mini that has Booster and Harley killing the other heroes off now, right? Maybe there will be some buzz for the character. I still think the new Bat-related characters that have appeared from the 80s until now are likely the best bets long term. I can't believe that none of us have listed the most obvious one........

Who?

I stopped playing the OA game a decade ago. What do his covers normally fetch?

Booster Gold? Maybe Damian Wayne or Jason Todd Red Hood. Other than that, there really isn't anything more of note to be honest. Azrael had a run in the early 90s that has crashed. Stephanie Brown/Prowler has cooled off a lot (I still think there is decent potential with her long term, though), and Cassandra Cain/Batgirl or Kate Kane/Batwoman are just being hyped now due to TV rumors.

I agree. Lobo is DC`s Venom. I would say I put Omega Men #3 up there with New Teen Titans #2 as the two biggest DC keys since 1980 because Lobo and Deathstroke are the two best new characters DC has created since 1980. A strong third would be John Constantine. Ummm.....none of those books are close to the actual biggest DC key since 1980.

This thread will close tonight and I will send out invoices over the weekend.

Seeing that I just landed a couple of copies of TOS #52 in a collection, I think this will be an amazing movie and everyone needs copies of BW's first appearance.

There are plenty of hard to find late run Marvel books as well, especially the Star Comics titles. Thor #370 is an example of a tough in high grade Marvel CPV, as well as ASM #238 and GI Joe #21. Batman #423 is actually quite common in high grade. I have bought and sold off several the past few years. Remember, back then Batman was a top seller that was just coming off of the success of TDK and Year One. The spinner racks were full of Batman, Tec, X-Men and Spider-books. Family friends owned one of the grocery stores in town (I grew up in a small town with a population of 1150) and the only titles they ordered 10+ copies of on a regular basis were Batman, Tec, Uncanny X-Men and ASM, and those would be the only four titles that would sell out right away. Everything else would have one or two copies sit for a couple of weeks and then be returned.

The Mattina Venom, ASM 129, GSX 1, and Thanos 13 sell well at shows for $8 - $30 (Thanos #13 due to 1st Cosmic GR), but the rest are slow due to the massive oversupply. That being said, they did sell out for the most part the first two weeks locally. However, Marvel/Diamond blew their remaining stock out at larger discounts for retailers towards the end of the lenticular run,so some of the local stores restocked and still have copies sitting on the shelves at cover. As far as the rarest question, there were some books in Week 1 that were harder to find since the local stores did not order a ton of the slow titles (e.g. that Royals one). However, with the Marvel/Diamond blow out sale it was evident there were plenty still available for back order if demand was there for them.